Colson Domergue's Final Reflection

The waves crashed onto the beach and it was the only sound I could hear. I had grown restless and sat in the car while Patrick was asleep and I just soaked in my environment. I was finally in Los Angeles. We arrived at 3 am on the morning of May 25^th and I was too excited to sleep. We were parked at Santa Monica Pier and I looked up at the lights and empty city and smiled as I tried to picture what the summer was going to have in store. I had no idea what was about to happen (I didn’t even have an internship secured yet) but all I knew was that the summer was going to be good. Soon the sun began to rise behind me and our first day in LA was about to begin.

The first week was a non-stop ride of touring studios, meeting with guest speakers, and exploring LA. One of the first things I learned is what a real film school looked like. I was awestruck the day that we toured USC’s film program. There are six sound stages located in their facilities and they are all state of the art.

During the second week, I was able to do some work on set at USC on a grad student’s thesis project. I helped tear down the set and was able to see the quality of work students at USC produce. I’m not going to lie: it was extremely intimidating.

I was able to land an internship during our second week in LA at Madhouse Entertainment. I started there during our third week. I was a script coverage intern, which was perfect for me. I got to read scripts all day and break them down. Most of the scripts were pretty bad but I was able to learn from them. I saw that a lot of the writers don’t turn in polished drafts. They think that executives will see the potential in the scripts, but they don’t realize that the scripts have to go through the interns first who have to really analyze everything about the script. Through my internship, I also learned about the relationship between managers and writers and how writers make a living.  

This will probably sound cheesy, but the highlight of the summer for me was getting to know and spend time with my peers from UA. I only knew a handful of them before we left for the summer and now it feels like I knew them all my entire life. I can’t wait to grow alongside these fine people this next year at UA and into the future when we take over the film industry.

Some of my other highlights from this summer were going to Venice Beach, meeting Joel McHale and Dan Harmon, attending a screening of Jurassic World, climbing up to the Tree of Life, the Terminator Genisys premiere, touring Warner Brothers, La Brea tar pits, and attending CMF Hollywood.